Buckfast: The English Monks' Wine With a Scottish Reputation

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The drink's English origin is not in doubt. The weaker parts of the story are Scottish. There is no published history of how and when Buckfast became popular in Lanarkshire, and claims about the share of its sales made in Scotland vary widely.

Crime figures need particular care. They come from police counts released to journalists and from surveys of young offenders. A crime report that mentions Buckfast shows that the drink was present or involved, not that it caused the offence. Buckfast is also highly visible: its distinctive bottle is easy to spot and record. Any article on Buckfast should avoid repeating the class stereotypes that often accompany it.

A monastic tonic

established The monks. Buckfast Abbey in Devon was acquired in 1882 by a community of French Benedictine monks who had been forced out of their abbey near Dijon and had spent time in Dublin.

established The recipe. The abbey says the tonic wine story "begins in 1897", when the nephew of a French monk visited and brought a recipe for a tonic wine. The base wines, called mistellas, were at first imported from Spain and now come from France. It was sold in small quantities as a medicine, and by the 1920s about 1,400 bottles a year were sold, 500 at the abbey and the rest by post.

traditional Its old slogan. The wine is said to have been sold with the advice "three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood". This is widely repeated but we have not traced an original label or advertisement.

Chandler and the change of recipe

established The 1927 arrangement. In 1927 a London wine merchant visited the abbey. J. Chandler & Co was a London wine merchant acquired by Robert Joyce in the early 1920s. The monks agreed to keep making the wine while a separate company handled sales, and J. Chandler & Company (Buckfast) Ltd was incorporated on 23 May 1927. Its registered office is now near Andover, Hampshire, where the wine is bottled.

shared The licence. Some accounts say the abbey lost its licence to sell wine in 1927, prompting the deal. The abbey's own history places the licensing difficulty slightly later, in the early 1930s. The details differ, but both agree that sales passed to a separate company.

established A new formula. The abbey says the tonic was changed "from a rather severe patent medicine to a smoother, more mature medicated wine" to widen its appeal.

established What it contains today. The UK version is 15 per cent alcohol by volume, sold in a 750 ml green bottle, and contains about 11 units of alcohol. Its listed ingredients include fortified wine, caffeine, sodium glycerophosphate and vanillin. At about 37.5 mg of caffeine per 100 ml, a bottle holds about 281 mg, more than tea but less than the same volume of coffee. The Irish version comes in a brown bottle and differs slightly.

Buckie in Scotland

established The heartland. Buckfast is particularly associated with Lanarkshire, east of Glasgow. The phrase "Buckfast triangle" is used for the area between Airdrie, Coatbridge and Bellshill. Coatbridge has also been described as the centre of a "Buckfast belt".

shared Why Scotland? No documented history explains the drink's Scottish popularity. Explanations include its early sale as a medicine (one account says doctors once recommended it to miners), its sweetness, strength and caffeine, and its price. None of these has been tested.

shared How much is drunk in Scotland. Claims vary widely. In 2003 the distributor's marketing director, Jim Wilson, dismissed a tabloid claim that the Monklands area took 70 per cent of the abbey's output, saying the real figure was under 7 per cent. He also said Buckfast accounted for under half of one per cent of alcohol sales in Scotland. In 2010 a company spokesman put its share of the Scottish alcohol market at under 1 per cent. These are the company's own figures.

established Nicknames. Besides "Buckie", nicknames include "wreck the hoose juice" and "commotion lotion". In Northern Ireland it has been called "Lurgan champagne". Many of these labels are used mockingly, and they say as much about how others see its drinkers as about the drink.

Politics and policing

established Ministers. In 2005 the Scottish Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, suggested that retailers stop selling Buckfast. Teenagers in Auchinleck greeted her with chants of "Don't ban Buckie", and sales in the area rose. In 2006 Health Minister Andy Kerr called it "an irresponsible drink in its own right", and First Minister Jack McConnell said it had become "a badge of pride" among those involved in antisocial behaviour. The former Secretary of State for Scotland Helen Liddell called for it to be banned.

established The 2010 crime figures. In January 2010 Strathclyde Police told a BBC programme that Buckfast had been mentioned in 5,638 crime reports between 2006 and 2009, about three a day. The bottle had been used as a weapon in 114 of these.

established Young offenders. In 2007 the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research surveyed young male offenders at Polmont Young Offenders Institution. Of those who had drunk alcohol before offending, 43.4 per cent said they had drunk Buckfast, compared with 42 per cent who had drunk spirits and 31 per cent beer.

shared What the figures mean. Critics read the figures as evidence that a strong, caffeinated drink sold in glass bottles makes violence more likely. The distributor and the abbey argue that Buckfast is a legal product drunk responsibly by most buyers, that it is a small share of the Scottish market, and that it is singled out for problems rooted in deprivation and wider drinking culture. The counts above show how often the drink is present, not that it causes offending, and no controlled study isolating Buckfast's effect has been found. Research on whether caffeine in alcoholic drinks changes behaviour is not conclusive.

established The court case. In 2013 Strathclyde Police asked some retailers to attach police stickers to Buckfast bottles so that bottles found at crime scenes could be traced to a shop. The distributor took the force to the Court of Session, saying this discriminated against its brand. In February 2014 the case was settled. The new Police Scotland apologised and agreed not to include Buckfast in future bottle-marking schemes without reasonable grounds.

The business

established Sales. Company accounts for the year 2022/23, reported in December 2023, showed J. Chandler & Company (Buckfast) Ltd selling £49.9 million of Buckfast, of which £49.1 million was in the UK. These are company-wide figures and do not show how much is sold in Scotland. The abbey's trust is a shareholder and receives a royalty on each bottle.

established The abbey's view. Abbot David Charlesworth has said the wine "is not made to be abused".

Buckfast as folklore

established Popular culture. Buckfast has become part of modern Scottish popular culture, celebrated and mocked in songs, comedy and merchandise. A "National Buckfast Day" was set up in 2015 and renamed World Buckfast Day the following year.

• Buckfast is blended at an abbey in Devon and bottled in Hampshire.
• The abbey says its recipe came from France in 1897.
• A bottle's 281 mg of caffeine is about as much as eight and a half 330 ml cans of Coca-Cola, which the maker lists at 33 mg a can.
• In 1920s Devon it sold about 1,400 bottles a year, mostly by post.
• A 2005 ministerial appeal to stop selling it was followed by a rise in sales.
• Police Scotland apologised to the distributor in 2014 over bottle-marking.

• Myth: Buckfast is Scottish. It comes from Buckfast Abbey in Devon, from a recipe the abbey says was brought from France in 1897. It is bottled in Hampshire and has been adopted culturally by parts of Scotland.
• Disputed: Buckfast causes crime. Police counted 5,638 Strathclyde crime reports mentioning it between 2006 and 2009, and 43.4 per cent of young offenders at Polmont who had drunk before offending had drunk it. These figures show how often the drink is present, not that it causes offending, and no controlled study isolating its effect has been found.
• Disputed: how much Buckfast is drunk in Scotland. A tabloid claim that the Monklands area took 70 per cent of the abbey's output was dismissed by the distributor, which put the figure under 7 per cent. These are the company's own figures, and Scottish sales are not published separately.
• Disputed: why Buckfast caught on in Scotland. Explanations include its early sale as a medicine, its sweetness, strength and caffeine, and its price. None is documented or tested.
• Disputed: why the abbey passed sales to a separate company. Some accounts say the abbey lost its licence to sell wine in 1927. The abbey's own history places the licensing difficulty in the early 1930s. Both agree that sales passed to J. Chandler & Company (Buckfast) Ltd.